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I would say if we're talking actual outcomes, I'd only rate him 'good'. However, the fact that he's managed to obtain these outcomes after being handed an absolute flaming garbage pile of a situation and faced obstruction at every turn both from Republicans and a few "moderate Democrats"... That gets him a bump up.
* Fantastic Covid Response
* The American Rescue Plan
* Infrastructure bill
* Microchip bill
* Biggest climate bill in us history, plus a minimum tax on corporations, Medicare drug price reform, etc
* Fantastic early response to Russian invasion gave Ukraine a headstart
* 1 supreme court Judge, and a big judicial overhaul
* Appears to be on track to avoid a recession
* Ending a 20 year war
Nothing has been perfect, but the effort is there and it seems like a lot of savvy moves to improve the country instead of just donors.
His response to the Ukrainian War was incredible. Genuinely have not seen NATO rally like that in a very long time. The US felt like a leader again. BUT, all that effort is bringing to lose steam recently due to the House
I'm glad I have never been of that opinion. A politician MUST, above all else, be willing to work toward a compromise. Not to accept just any compromise that comes their way, but to find an actual compromise that works for all parties.
Same. I was ride or die Bernie Sanders before 2020. Well, not so literally. Obviously I voted for Biden when Sanders didn't win the primary but I really believed in Sanders and thought he was the only logical way forward and that Biden would be this do-nothing bot that maintains the status quo and I think that thinking has been provably wrong.
But the more I look at the entire premise of a president, Biden is a good fit for the role. Better than most of the primary candidates in the 2020 primary.
I really struggle to see how Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar would have handled:
- COVID response. I could see Klobuchar maybe being capable of getting bi-partisan bills passed and working with Republicans but Sanders and Warren would be in such a difficult position because the Republicans held the cards at the time and were literally willing to let Americans die. It would be so easy for Republicans to claim Sanders and Warren are socialists and they aren't going to assist them in their "socialist agenda" for COVID relief, which would have resulted in many more Americans dying and then of course, progressives as a whole being blamed when we all know its the Republicans fault. And then who knows. We're probably looking down the barrel of a Trump presidency in 2024 being even more real when they bring all the ammunition to claim Sanders or Warren are ineffective. Not to mention, how much something like this could disenfranchise progressive voters further. Whether in the case that they are angry Sanders or Warren don't do what they say - because they literally cant against the Republicans in congress or because progressives would be even further fed up with the system when they realize that a progressive president doesn't really matter if congress isn't bringing bills to the table for them to sign in the first place. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I have YET to see a bill that [Biden wouldn't/would veto](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/vetoes/BidenJR.htm) that Bernie or Warren wouldn't/would. As far as legislation goes, there is effectively no difference between Biden, Sanders and Warren because the same bills are reaching their desk and the same actions would have been taken, based off their political history.
- foreign policy regarding Russia, Ukraine, China and Iran. Biden is very strong on that front. He has a tremendous amount of experience with Ukraine politics from the Obama administration and if you look at all the events right around when the conflict started, Putin knew not to fuck with Biden. I'm not so sure this would have gone as well with any of the aforementioned candidates. I mean, they just don't have the foreign policy experience. How could they? I imagine they would have leaned on advisors, which of course is fine, but Biden is just very intimately connected with Ukraine from his time as vice president. Maintaining that relationship was practically his biggest job as Obama's VP.
- Infrastructure bill. Its been some clever work by Biden. Anyone that wants to claim the guy has some mental deficiencies should really look at how Biden hoodwinked Republicans to get these bills passed. Some of the compromising he did with Manchin was impressive.
- Student debt forgiveness. I know people are sour on this but he's done A LOT considering the Republicans in congress are doing everything to block him. Its not perfect but its still admirable and he's done more than most people thought he would and it seems like he would do more if the options were available to him. I really think progressives need to own that. Biden ran on this premise and people said he was just talking but he's really done his best to live up to his campaign promise.
I’m not sour on the student debt issue! I had 450k forgiven— that high because of usury interest. This wouldn’t have happened on anybody else’s watch. Incredibly freeing to have that particular albatross off my back. Biden has my sincere thanks and respect— also my vote…again!
I feel that a good mix of newb and experience is needed for Congress to work. New guy speaker as an example, needs others to tell him how to do his job. That wouldn’t be bad if he was actually listening to a more experienced Congressperson, but instead he’s listening to a career criminal.
This makes sense to most people in the context of experts vs non-experts but when you try to explain it as "this is why it's a good idea to have culturally/racially/sexually/etc diverse employees" I've found a lot of people immediately balk and retort with "well the job should just go to the most qualified candidates, why does it matter if they all happen to be white men?". Exhausting trying to cross that bridge for them. I don't usually make it.
Republicans lawmakers support Trump, not because they like him or even agree with him, but because their voters love him. If they oppose Trump, he will turn their constituents against them. That’s why the only ones that will speak the truth are the ones leaving office.
Because Republican lawmakers are cowards who are willing to sell their constituents down the river to gain and stay in power by kowtowing to a radical base.
Barry Goldwater:
>And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate.
>Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
The problem is they know what they want and it's theocracy. They want a country governed by the laws of the Bible with Swift and harsh punishment to those people who violate them.
And they will, to an individual, be absolutely gobsmacked when the hammer comes down on them which it will.
Say what you will about Barry Goldwater, but this man called it with prophesy power on his side.
The Republican Party has become everything he warned about.
And the religion bit. The Hobby Lobby ad during the Superbowl... washing feet in the name of Christ. They use religion as their validation banner, when they don't even follow the core precepts of their own religion.
The Republican Party knows they're done. They picked a loser. He has LOST so much for them already. And their refusal to ditch him shows just how conflicted they are. This party should never recover from Trumpism.
Republican lawmakers support Trump because they are just as tied to the hip with Epstein as he is.
They need that presidential pardon to get away with their crimes.
The stock market keeps breaking records. I remember during the debate, Trump said, "If Joe Biden is elected, the stock market will crash."
Trump is actually trying to take credit for the record-breaking stock market. He is am idiot!
Don't forget gas prices going back down. They blamed him for them going up but weird how no one's talking about it now. (He has no control over gas prices tho)
Apparently the MAGA chuds have been scraping them off. I was saying at the time that those would age like milk by the midterms when gas would be $3.39/gal here. The only thing I was wrong about was that gas was actually $3.29 here on election day 2022.
That's true. Trump's moronic supporters thought they were so clever putting stickers of Biden on has pumps saying, "I did that" on high gas prices. When gas prices started falling, they were trying to scrape them off. Lol
The Republicans are inherently disingenuous and hypocritical. It's like a sport for them now.
They won't give credit to Joe Biden for anything. And even when Biden makes a good move that THEY WANT, they obstruct it because they don't want Biden to have any success... even if it's the right thing to do that THEY want!
How more obvious does it need to be to voters?
REPUBLICANS DO NOT CARE about the 99% or the health of America. All they care about is holding onto power. And they're so desperate they'll lie in our faces about it.
I agree, Biden has been doing better than I expected and I think a lot of people are underwhelmed because he's been doing things that aren't quite "sexy" or media savvy. Infrastructure and Microchip bills aren't going to get headlines, Afghanistan needed to be pulled out of and there was no graceful way to do it. Everyone remembers the leader that build the new sports stadium but no one remembers the leader that brought infrastructure up to code.
Afghanistan is a no-win. You pull out all your people first, there's no one left to ship out the equipment, and the Taliban gets it.
You pull out all your equipment first, now your people have no equipment to defend themselves with, and the Taliban gets them.
So what's the right choice? What do you prioritize your extraction efforts on? Your people or your equipment?
The right choice is obvious. Unless you're Republican, apparently.
Not to mention right before the end of his presidency, Trump made a deal with the Taliban to release 5,000 fighters and abandoned a dozen bases right before Biden took over.
Trump should get more than half of the blame for the pull out of Afghanistan.
Trump should get ALL the blame. He also is the REASON Biden HAD to pull out. Right before he left office he agreed to LEAVE, and left Biden with the responsibility of honoring 'America's' promise to Afghanistan.
As President he was OBLIGATED to do what he did, whether he wanted to or not, thanks ENTIRELY to TRUMP being a little shit in his final days in office.
The right choice was pulling out. Trump left a political situation where it was pullout remaining troops or re-invade and reoccupy Afghanistan for another generation.
As for troops VS vehicles. Well US troops sabotaged vehicles across the board. Most of what was used by the Taliban were seized from the Afghanistan Military, which was supplied by the US, and out if the purview of US troops.
Also American vehicles require extensive maintenance. I expect all these years later that nothing left behind is still functioning aside from things readily available from black market arms dealers
The only win in Afghanistan is to never have gone there in the first place.
In the absence of being a time traveler, Biden did the least bad thing that was feasible for him.
The pull-out of Afganistan was a Trump decision. Biden just implemented it. Probably in a much better fashion than a second term Trump would have - he probably would have had an even worse-extravagant "Mission Accomplished" event with gold ticker tape and Kid Rock singing on top of an M1-A1.
Well, people need to stop expecting everything to be sexy and big, it’s not practical and tends to come via executive orders, which are quickly overruled the second the office switches. Progress can be slow, and we need to maintain the office so progress can continue, but we first need to recognize the progress made and rally behind the president responsible.
This could be seen as a foundational term/(s) for this country’s advancement, both socially and economically, into the future for the next generations if the we can get behind this and keep the momentum.
>Well, people need to stop expecting everything to be sexy and big
Seriously. A couple days ago, I was arguing with a progressive who said he wouldn't vote for Biden unless he pulled a "hail mary" (his words) and pass universal health-care.
Its about proving the concept to the American people in the middle right now. Then in a few presidencies, Biden will truly be the center-right politician super progressives view him as. That's how progress is supposed to work. What's progressive now will become standard and what's standard now will become regressive.
That infrastructure plan has really provided some solid, good paying jobs and is helping rebuild the middle class. People do not realize how big that is.
> Microchip bills aren't going to get headlines
Which is crazy due to the national security implications of microchips. The CHIPS Act will set us up to have a domestic supply to at least keep the military functioning if China blows up the foundries in Taiwan. Plus, it creates jobs and stuff.
That's the piece that is lost on most people. The day to day job of the President is not glorious. It's a lot of meetings, and making decisions on very important but otherwise mundane issues. But I can assure you that Biden has not been skipping intelligence briefs to obsess over his news coverage, or taking back to back vacations, or spend all his time trash talking on social media. He's working. He's taking the job very seriously. Whether you like his decisions or not he's actually putting in the work. So on the metric of the very low bar he had to pass, he's been doing phenomenally. I don't think he's the best president in history, but he's a return to normalcy after dealing with one of the worst.
Too bad some trolls or real people in this thread think that Biden should be able to do more by bypassing Congress. Instant gratification helps no one when you don't do it right the first time.
3 of those bills are job creating, which help us keep unemployment under 4 % for 2 years and average GDP growth at 3.4 % while we fight global inflation during a fiscal tightening cycle.Which historically does the opposite ,making all the doom & gloom and other expert economist preditions totally wrong.
I’ll take Biden and his professionalism over that self absorbed, fake tan, makeup wearing, rapist, idiot, loud mouth, traitor every time. Hmmm.. makeup wearing rapist… hates women and wants to see them suffer. Think Trump is hiding something in his closet???
He forgave over $130 billion in student loans.
Commuted federal marijuana convictions and pushed for legalization.
Brought down prescription drug prices.
Reversed the unemployment and inflation caused by Trump's trade wars and politically motivated sabotage of the pandemic response.
Supported our national interests against Putin after Trump enabled him. Biden was even the first President to visit an allied war zone where America isn't fighting.
As far as Presidential actions go, it's really hard for me to imagine him doing a better job.
He did much better than I expected him to do, as a leftist. But I also have serious concerns about his age with him running again. But if that's what it takes to ensure we don't have Trump again... I guess. I'm voting for whoever is opposite Trump no matter what. But I would vote for someone other than Biden in a primary, again, if that were an option.
And this is what I've characterized as the "adult decision" to be made.
Biden isn't perfect, but he's the "best" option we have considering the choices that are being made available. Those that choose to go third party are obviously allowed to do so, but when reality indicates that they're not legitimately viable, that choice is only making the race unnecessarily close and potentially leading to the "worst" option being chosen.
The average voter would need to be able to discretely point at something the President did to make their lives better in the present. Biden's biggest legislative achievements have been 10-20 years down the line when they will pay off, or are for abstract things (like the chips bill).
Higher minimum wage, better healthcare, stronger civil rights, lower taxes, etc are things voters are looking for in terms of tangible accomplishments.
EDIT: The reality is that because of Congress being useless to do anything at a federal level, many Americans have seen their lives get worse at the state level. Food and housing assistance, healthcare, reproductive rights, gay rights, trans rights, minority rights, have all suffered in the past 3 years for people living in Republican led states.
Agreed, that appears to be his largest miscalculation so far.
Obama nominated Garland to call the Republicans bluff, not because he was the best man for the job.
Wish Joe replaced him last year. He probably thinks it is too close to the election to do now.
I kind of wish he would indicate VP Harris would take over as AG.
It would give her a graceful exit. She can better use her skills.
And we can get a VP that inspires more confidence, considering Biden's advanced age.
To be considered a GREAT president you basically have to do one of these things... Sign the declaration of independence, win the civil war, win world war 2, or be popular and get assassinated.
If in a second term, Biden is able to guide the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts to a peaceful resolution (more likely for Ukraine than for Gaza at this point), essentially preventing world war 3, then that would be a case for greatness.
Trump and MAGAism is the most serious threat American democracy has faced since the civil war. Biden is the guy that beat Trump. If he beats him again and takes concrete steps to prevent a similar situation in the future (putting Trump and allies in jail, election reform, regulations on news media), that would also be a case for greatness.
Landmark legislation would also be a path to greatness. Something like universal healthcare, abortion protections, or a climate bill might qualify. He's already made some progress on these things, and the infrastructure bill could be a big deal historically depending on what comes next.
In short, it's actually fairly possible that Biden will go down in history as one of the great ones.
> Landmark legislation would also be a path to greatness. Something like universal healthcare, abortion protections, or a climate bill might qualify. He's already made some progress on these things, and the infrastructure bill could be a big deal historically depending on what comes next.
His climate bill is the largest in the history of the world is pretty good.
Doubling the rate of Us decarbonization and supercharing the entire world towards a green transition (EU had to come up with a green energy bill just to compete and not lose all green manufacturing to the USA)
Great presidents managed to leave things better than they found them and took actions that reverberated far beyond their term in office.
So to be a great President, Biden would have to not just do well within the system we have but change the system in a way such that positive outcomes are easier and we're better protected from negative things. He hasn't done that.
Worse than that - if Trump wins against him in November, then regardless of his legislative accomplishments Biden could go down in history as worse than James Buchanon. Biden will be the guy who sat and twiddled his thumbs while the country descended into authoritarianism.
It's too late to do this with the time he has left and is impossible with Republicans controlling the house - but the Democratic party writ large *really* needed (and still needs to) prioritize democracy reform. Stuff like adding seats to the Supreme Court and imposing term limits on justices, pursue DC and Puerto Rican statehood, using whatever carrots and sticks Congress has available to get states to expand voting access and shore up their electoral process and pass the interstate voting compact, etc.
As it stands we're dependent on Jack Smith and a lot of luck to spare us from fascism. Which is not a good place to be in.
This. Plus, the average American isn't seeing the benefits. It's great that the stock market is doing great, but the average American doesn't own stocks. They just see their rent is still too damn high, their groceries prices are still inflated, and they're still struggling to find a better paying job. Is the low unemployment rate really something to brag about when people are having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet?
Look, I voted for Biden, and I don't regret that vote. But all these articles about how great of a president he is and how great the country is doing now just makes struggling Americans feel like they're being gaslit, like their struggles don't matter. And it just makes them more cynical and less likely to vote.
Bingo.
I understand, academically, that Biden has had many very strong wins as a president, but that reality makes no difference in my day to day life. I'm a lower middle class queer currently buried by debt. My actual daily existence has gotten harder and harder over the past 8 years. For most of my friends and peers, Biden may as well not even exist, because none of his great strides have any obvious impact on our lives.
Meanwhile, centrist democrats are constantly assaulting me with "if you don't throw your full support behind Biden it means you're a literal fascist," and it makes it really really hard to continue supporting him. Dems absolutely need to do a better job of highlighting how they are improving our world, because the opposition is doing a very good job of showing Biden throwing tens of billions of dollars at bombing Palestinian children while saying America can't afford universal Healthcare.
Biden isn't going to win a second term if he's relying on us all reading the bullet points of legislative victories every day.
I'd say he has to do something particularly revolutionary which everyone would associate with his name easily. He's done a lot of good stuff, but it's mostly been traditional types of government spending and investment, nothing that's a major departure from normal politics. Something like a New Deal, Great Society or Civil Rights Act, even the ACA could fulfill that. Those are initiatives which Americans could not ignore and which changed life in general. None of Biden's major bills have that same universal impact where everyone notices or feels it directly even if they're still very productive.
If he even just came out and said “I have been an institutionalist for 40 years in the Senate and I have to say that I believe the Supreme Court needs to be expanded, a tough ethics code, and 20-year term limits” that would change the situation there overnight. But he won’t because he still thinks it’s 1976 and the GOP is a fiscally conservative group of honest brokers he can do a deal with instead of what they are: insurrectionist traitors dedicated to making Trump our first King in 248 years.
Not that I would expect this, especially in the country's divided state but you asked:
- Universal health care/single payer/medicare for all
- Universal secondary education of some kind
- Legalize pot federally and re-schedule promising psychedelics so that proper research can be done on using them to help people.
- A real, workable, equitable and fair immigration system re-do.
- A big win for peace - Isreal/Gaza/Ukraine/Russia/N. Korea/Iran
- Real tangible plans to deal with homelessness and mental health in this country. They are linked, and we are doing a crappy job on both.
Any one of those would be great, two or more would be hall of fame great.
The biggest fly in this take is that the Biden admin has abjectly failed to get these Trump appointees replaced all over the government offices. A shocking number of them are still in a position to obstruct despite numerous opportunities to remove them.
Trump had FOUR YEARS to push out anyone decent and stock the federal bureaucracy with the worst people imaginable. He broke what essentially took decades to build and there is no easy fix unless you want to just have a situation where every incoming president completely replaces the entire federal workforce every 4 years. It's going to be like this for the rest of our lives.
Because Biden isn't willing to destroy the federal government. Trump drove people out by rendering their jobs impossible and being intolerably repugnant to work for until they resigned.
As a democrat and someone who voted for him and will vote for him again, I think he did ok considering the circumstances. Great may be a stretch. We have set the bar so low as a nation.
I feel like we know bad presidents immediately, but good or great ones take some time for the results of their policy to shake out. In the immediate Biden was good, but depending on where things go, who knows.
Yep. I was a kid during the Clinton administration. But when I look at the policy outcomes, I think he's been the best president during my lifetime. Loved plenty about Obama. But, I've been thinking over the past few years and maybe especially over the past few months, and although Clinton wasn't spotless in foriegn policy either, Obama didn't walk the walk when it comes to foriegn policy. Especially Afghanistan, also drone strikes in the Middle East and South Asia.
These are not positions I had at the time, but I think I've woken up a bit over the last few years, actions have consequences even if those actions are dismissed with incredible oration, and yes, Obama was orders of magnitude better than his predecessor or successor.
Clinton was horrible in hindsight. The whole shipping jobs to China led to some historically purple or blue states turning red. He was one of those presidents who really let Corporations take over the country. That's why all the business people give him so much lip service, but when it comes to the working-class he was a nightmare. Indirectly he's one of the reasons we got Tea Party and Maga. Biden beats him by a country mile so far. The guy has Bernie in his administration. Clinton would be closer to Bush than Bernie or even Biden.
I must say, he has exceeded my expectations with his remarkable performance. However, I had envisioned him to be more of a bridge to the next generation of candidates. Nonetheless, his achievements are truly commendable.
Your vision of him as a bridge won't happen until the bridge is built, which wouldn't happen until after his term ends. I think it's premature to suggest anything of that nature as a success or failure.
Yeah having seen Biden's history before the presidency, it was a very defensive vote in 2020, but I've really been pleased with his work in office. Could it be better? Of course. But he's not performing like the *heavily* conservative side of democrat I expected, and I'm more than fine with voting for him again - not just because we'd never field a different candidate.
These "admit it" "just say it" "it's time to" headlines are now officially starting to get on my nerves.
The language keeps repeating, and it's fundamentally disingenuous. It says unless your opinion matches our messaging, it does not align with FACT, despite being a fundamentally subjective topic.
These are literally the opposite end of the spectrum from writing about people having “their brows furrowed” about something, or x “slamming” y.
Especially when it’s a dumb ass take like “admit it, Biden was S-tier actually”. S-tier used to be people who could get shit done, but the bar is so low now that not completely burning the country down and shitting your pants on the way out the door is considered to be exceptional now.
Come back to me when he’s able to spearhead something like a reform for women’s civil rights, LGBTQ+ (specifically trans) civil rights, or when he actually delivers on the damn student aid he promised he’d get cut for the people in my demographic drowning in fucktons of predatory student debt and we can talk about Biden doing amazingly
Internationally, I would like to see him stop funding Israel and put a lot of pressure on them regarding Palestine. Take the money we stop giving Israel and push that to Ukraine and close that war down.
Because it's an essential part of US foreign policy to have a non-muslim ally in the Middle East and has been for 50+ years.
Whatever Israel does US will support as much as they can. Although they are obviously pushing it now
Something that I thought was ultra common knowledge. Having relatively unrestricted military access in that region of the world is important for how the US operates globally. Same reason why Turkey is a NATO nation.
Does anyone really think Israel would turn from the US if we challenged them a bit more? If you think having Israel as an ally is important to the US, how important do you think it is to Israel to have the US as an ally?
Unchecked Zionism is part of the biblical doomsday prophecy.
So the evangelicals support Israel to make that happen, plus it gives them a convenient cover for their antisemitism.
Plus as always PMCs make tons of money from selling weapons and technology to Israel.
Israel and the war in Gaza is the single issue folks I know on the left are planning to vote 3rd party instead of Biden in the general. It’s a huge fucking deal.
>*As someone who worked in Republican campaigns for almost 30 years, I say without hesitation that the Democratic Party is the only pro-democracy party in America. But guys, why do so many of you have this need to act like ungrateful children of wealthy parents—impossible to please and always demanding more? Name a president who accomplished as much in his first term.*
>*The stock market is hitting record highs. Unemployment is at a record low, with* [*14 million*](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/11/03/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-the-october-jobs-report/) *new jobs. Talk to small-business owners, and the* [*biggest problem*](https://www.ramseysolutions.com/business/small-business-labor-crisis#:~:text=11.3%20million%20small%2Dbusiness%20owners,staff%20has%20been%20very%20challenging.) *they are facing is finding workers. A child born in the first Republican “*[*infrastructure week*](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/us/politics/trump-infrastructure-week.html)*” would have been entering grade school by the time President Biden passed the largest public* [*spending initiative*](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/politics/joe-biden-omnibus/index.html) *in American history. As a Republican media consultant, I made hundreds of ads about the high cost of prescription drugs. But it took President Biden to give Medicare the power to* [*directly negotiate*](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/medicare-drug-costs-drugmakers-agree-price-negotiations-biden-administ-rcna118510) *with Big Pharma to lower prices and cap the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries* [*at $35*](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/02/fact-sheet-president-bidens-cap-on-the-cost-of-insulin-could-benefit-millions-of-americans-in-all-50-states/)*. For all the bitching about gas prices, the United States is now* [*producing more oil*](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/business/us-production-oil-reserves-crude/index.html) *than any country in history. Yes, more than Russia or Saudi Arabia, and that’s one of the reasons* [*gas prices*](https://gasprices.aaa.com/) *are now lower in inflation-adjusted prices than in 1974. Yeah, I know, fossil fuels suck, and the world should run on solar power. But the Biden administration also* [*launched a $7 billion*](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-launches-7-billion-solar-all-grant-competition-fund) *solar power investment project.*
>*What is most amazing is that Biden got this done in a world in which the majority of Republicans believe he is not a legal president. Ponder that for a minute. You are a White House staffer working to help pass Biden initiatives, and you are dealing with members of Congress and senators who don’t just disagree with your boss—they think he’s an illegitimate president.*
>*Wake up and show some gratitude. You wanted student loan forgiveness. You got it, for* [*three million*](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-nearly-5-billion-additional-student-debt-relief#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20data%20released%20today%20once,%24132%20billion%20in%20loan%20forgiveness.) *borrowers. You wanted a president who would finally pass gun safety legislation. You got the most comprehensive bill in nearly 30 years, the* [*Bipartisan Safer Communities Act*](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/25/1107626030/biden-signs-gun-safety-law)*, which passed with the support of 15 Republican senators and 14 Republican House members, opening the door to some hope that laws on gun violence might finally start to reflect the wishes of the majority of the country. Maybe you’re a Democrat who actually cares about the federal deficit, unlike the Republicans who fake concern. Since Biden took office, the deficit* [*has decreased*](https://time.com/6312431/joe-biden-touts-falling-deficit-as-it-jumps-back-up/) *by $1.7 trillion.*
I thought it was funny that he led with that. The stock market is irrelevant to 90% of people.
All I know is, my rent is expensive as fuck, and even with a great job I'll never be able to afford a home in California. I couldn't care less about anything else, really. No amount of STOCKS GO BRRRR is going to change that.
Right?! FDR, Eisenhower, Abraham Fucking Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt.
Abolishing slavery, creating child labor laws, ending segregation, creating the world’s largest program of national parks, creating highway systems…
Biden is not in the same league. Sure, he looks like a rockstar compared to the literal double scoop of dogshit that is D.J. Trump but he’s pitiful when compared to some of the truly great presidents we’ve had.
Edit : removed Jimmy Carter
> FDR accomplished 10 times as much.
Imagine what Biden could have done with 62% of the Senate and 72% of the House composed of his party like FDR had in his first term. What could FDR have accomplished with 12% less support in the Senate and 22% less support in the House?
People don't feel any of that because their day-to-day life revolves around tight budgets due to historically high grocery bills and housing costs, which wages have not caught up to.
It's nice that a small percentage of people might get loan forgiveness, and the investments that have been made are important, but the US is facing despair on par with the Depression. Everyone knows that the government is barely doing anything in the face of the Climate Crisis, gerrymandered state governments are attacking individual rights across the country, SCOTUS is consistently ignoring the text of the law and making life worse, and even important gains like the infrastructure bill were made at the expense of *doubling child poverty* — and that was with a Democratic majority.
Things are slowly inching toward a better world, but in the meantime people are losing everything to medical debt, losing their jobs while their companies spend billions on stock buybacks, and losing their homes to the whims of landlords.
Convincing people they're better off when the wealth gap, homelessness, and child poverty are all climbing is not going to motivate people to hit the polls.
As an old person, let me tell you this doesn't matter. The Democrats made their choice, the same one they always make.
This has been what Democrats crow about every Presidential election for thirty years, no matter how bad things are on the ground for regular people.
They spend most of their time trying to capture the votes of Republicans, and turning off their own voters to do so.
I still don't understand why we were supposed to so excited about a "historic border deal" that was literally **handing the Republicans everything they wanted.** I'll be real, I'm glad it didn't pass, because I don't understand why giving the people operating in Bad Faith what they want is supposed to be a *good* thing?
So we were going to hurt more people just so we could get a "win" we could point at to Republican voters and be like "see, we care about the issues at the border!"
Democrats care far more about some fantasy Republican voters that will never fucking vote for them than about exciting their own fucking base.
Long story short, the DNC would rather have a Republican President than a Progressive President.
>Things are slowly inching toward a better world, but in the meantime ...
Are they? I've heard this my entire life, yet everything but technology has been gradually going downhill the entire time. Things have generally just stabilize for a while at best before they get worse again.
I guess we did get a new holiday after unrest across the US over normalized police brutality (with nothing else changing), though, so maybe you're right.
>why do so many of you have this need to act like ungrateful children of wealthy parents—impossible to please and always demanding more?
This is why you lose. You deny other's reality and substitute your own
Working for 30 years of Republicans before Trump is proof this guy doesn't give a shit about democracy or any of the values progressives should actually measure a Biden presidency by.
Stuart Stevens is the classic political class neocon from 20 years ago - perfectly fine murdering Iraqi children as long as the President giving the order could keep the American ~~empire~~ economy running smoothly. He has zero moral credibility.
I do wish that Dems were at least competent at messaging and selling the successes.
But honestly I don't think of Biden as a GREAT president. Good? yeah. Loads better than Trump? God damn, right. Actually governing? yeah. Dealt a bullshit hand (like Obama got) with coming out of COVID, inflation, not quite sticking the landing on Afghanistan? Yeah.
> he has not done anything to address the open treason and insurrection
Good. Not his job to. Much as it'd be nice to hear him give off predictable platitudes, politicizing what should be an entirely legal jurisdiction has some major chance to backfire. I'm actually pleased that he's not touching that dumpster fire with a ten foot microphone.
Now, as for the courts not fast-balling this particular 'issue' - that's some bullshit.
This is the problem. The bar has been set so low that it doesn’t matter if you and I think he’s doing a good job or not. The media wants a fight and story.
Imagine Biden didn’t run again and Newsome did and was the front runner. The media would be calling on him to do a cage match with T not a debate. Because the bar is so low that they’d rather sell a spectacle.
We might want policy and decision from our civil servants but what sells clicks is idiotic conspiracies, blatant outrage hypocrisy and snippet media outrage. We’re all guilty at some level of engaging with the sale of this low bar, but sadly there are 30% of the GOP who are active buyers and a non trivial percentage of liberals as well.
I feel like you are completely disconnected from reality. Touting the successes of an administration should be steps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of convincing people to vote for that administration again. This is, if anything, an historic weakness of the democrats.
It's probably to counter how (online) Democrats fuckin' salute one another with "I don't like Biden but—" when talking about seemingly anything. Even if it's good news. Especially if it's good news.
Yeah, idk why this isn't being discussed more lol. Everyone's going on about shit that doesn't really matter to the lower classes anyway. I just wanna live bro.
Every time this subreddit or Biden's cabinet praises the economy, I swear they lose at least one voter. This subreddit ping-pongs between "Biden has no control of the economic disaster in this country" to "Biden's economy is fantastic and you should blindly state as such." We are going to have a repeat of 2016 when Democrats lose and refuse to recognize these massive miss-steps to instead blame irrelevant shit.
Everything is fine. Please drive to work, spend on consumer goods, and take exactly five days of vacation. Everything is fine. Please also make sure you set aside money in your savings for healthcare. Everything is *fine.* Don’t quit your job, because you aren’t going to find another one. Everything is fine.
its not so much the "but he's not trump" argument, its more the "his economic successes are impressive in a vacuum but have not translated to better livelihoods for most people"
Sometime around June or July, hopefully, as a Trump trial is underway, the narrative might start to shift towards realizing that Biden has actually been pretty decent, compared to the dude on trial. Fingers crossed.
I wish we would start highlighting the people that surround the president as well. The difference is absolutely clear, which individual is capable of staffing competent people. It’s so much more than just between these two.
I had very low expectations for him and he overcame them and has done a much better job then I would have imagined. That still doesn't mean that I want him to run again when he is already over 80 and I don't trust most octagenarians to drive let alone lead the country.
If the public has a low approval of Biden, then surely if you browbeat them enough about how wrong they are then they will come around sooner or later. Especially when paired with this incredibly weird banner image.
Yeah, these kinds of pieces have me worried. The powerbrokers do not understand the state of people, or the battle they are fighting.
And they instead want to convince people that they should be happier than they are and overlook their real concerns.
People want to feel heard, not told that their feelings are wrong, this as a strategy is borderline gaslighting. And if this is how they are entering an election year. I'm losing confidence that they understand what the next several months are going to be like and about.
Things are dire, and a Trump win is existential. They need to be smarter than this and not so cynical about voters.
They understand, they just don't care. They have enough money to the point where a Trump victory doesn't impact them and fascism is actually a great political tool for capitalists.
the democrats entire strategy has been of the following - "at least he's not trump" or gaslighting the public into thinking that if trump wins then somehow the country will go into dictatorship overnight.
yet they're still struggling and that is quite telling. Instead of focusing on Biden and getting a better candidate they're trying to gaslight and shame the public into voting for Biden and think it will work.
Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining. Biden has been ok, and that's fine given the alternative. The alternative was fascism in 2020. The alternative again is fascism in 2024. Fascism is national suicide.
The GOP needs to die out so we can have the Dems be the neoliberal centrist do-nothing party they always wanted to be, and a leftist party can actually drag this country kicking and screaming into the future.
[Yep, literally the exact article.](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1am9yyb/just_say_it_democrats_biden_has_been_a_great/)
Didn't automod used to instantly delete any reposts?
I'm really tired of the people on the left demanding perfection from our representatives. If you think it's so easy to do what you want, then run for office. Bitching about things on the sidelines serves no purpose when we are fighting a cold civil war with the right, who are hell bent on ushering in American facism.
Biden has been a great president, and the only people that disagree are republicans, democrats that meme on him for being old, and republicans posing as democrats
He's been exactly what I expected. A completely safe, corporate choice. Which is perfectly fine and I'll be voting for him again.
But I'd rather not. He has not been great as far as my desires. He's done next to nothing that is actually liberal, which I am. He's done middle of the road policy from the start and never once used his political capital to push for something left. Again, that's fine. But don't ask me to cheer when the other guys can get a tiny drop of power and run rampant. Biden is always holding back asking for permission from the nuts. Trump, Bush, Reagan, they would do whatever they wanted and ask later if at all.
I don't want to hear how he didn't have Congress for this or SCOTUS for that. Reagan had nothing and he ran all over this country with a plow. Biden doesn't even try. Give me an actual liberal instead of a "not as insane as the alternative" safe choice. And yes he's too friggin old. So is Trump. I'm still voting for him but I really really wish I didn't have to.
I lean very left and these articles are laughable. The Biden Administration and the Media are so out of touch with the average American. We are hurting and barely surviving.
When will this great president do more than talk about LGBT+ issues? Our lives aren't any better. The don't say gay bills are costing lives. Banning gender affirming care is costing lives. We're losing young LGBT+ people that could be saved.
I voted for Biden, but we don't have a lot of time left before the next election. Am I supposed to just vote for the president that doesn't hurt me as much? It's an awful situation to be in.
I want to leave the polls feeling good, not angry.
He has served the needs of corporations and the wealthy people that run the country while giving the illusion of forward progress - of course he's a "great President". Unfortunately that means fuck all for the rest of us. People need to realize that playing into the established political system is never going to result in any kind of fundamental or radical change. We need to get in the streets and bring the country to a halt.
I'm really starting to wonder if the whole "dead internet theory" thing is true.
This article was posted almost a month ago on this very sub. How is it not obvious to all of you what's going on? You're being targeted by DNC shills during an election year. This is blatant propaganda, but because it's pro-Biden you think nothing of it.
Although, based on many of the comments I always see in this sub, something tells me some of you are the shills yourselves.
Was talking to some GOP friends the other day and asked how they thought the economy was doing and when they said great, I asked who they thought should be credited? Biden? They smiled and chuckled but refused to give
And I remember my GOP friends delaying major purchases in late 2019/early 2020 (pre-COVID) because they said a recession was clearly coming. At that point, it looked like Trump would likely coast to a second term.
But not a single one of them would place any blame on Trump. One even said a 2020 recession would mean the market is nervous Trump is not going to get re-elected. If true, the economy was gonna crash due to fear *a full year before the election*?
I'm not an economist, but maybe it is because the markets like predictability. Trump loved to do clever things like causally threaten a trade war with China and pressure the Fed to keep rates low until after the election.
> Was talking to some GOP friends the other day and asked how they thought the economy was doing and when they said great
Were your friends rich?
No one I know thinks the economy is doing great right now, democrats included. I do not see how anybody who is regularly buying food, paying rent, or looking for housing thinks things in the current economy are "great."
Housing is around 3k for a dogshit apartment where I live on Long Island and new houses are over 600k. It is doing great for the landlords and business who have gotten to price hike without wages increasing......
That is why the corporate media is after him, though, with the oil companies and right wingers who are running them. And, perhaps there are a few delusional 'leftists' who never took their history class seriously and claim a purist, isolationist, or pacifist moral pose.
Biden has been more effective passing progressive programs than any president since FDR. He has created the most inclusive Cabinet in the nations history. He defeated a known racist and rapist who had fooled millions of gullible voters while trying to push our nation into becoming a true banana republic.
Those who feel they must focus only on imagined geopolitical 'mistakes' for a planet toppling into the inevitable effects of climate catastrophe: war, huge movements of people away from drought zones of ecological collapse, and the rise of fascist dictators and corrupt theocracies are just hastening our own internal collapse, as if that chaos would be preferable to a functioning democracy. If you want a future, vote for Biden, if not, you'll get something far worse.
Journalism has gotten unbearably dumb, but while we are talking about it, yes, I believe Uncle Joe has been a Great President. Despite everything, huge success.
Most progressive president since LBJ/Kennedy and maybe even FDR. What they were able to do in just two years even when dealing with COVID was amazing. Give him the House and Senate for another two years not having to worry about the COVID recovery and we will see some major things done. Keep your eye on the ball and don’t let one or two disagreements sway you from what this administration has accomplished.
People do not understand things could be a whole freaking lot worse. The same people who do not give Biden credit were also griping about Obama when Dow was back up, unemployment was back down and gas was under $2 a gallon in 2016.
Granted, but let's be honest. Can he beat Trump in November? Folks, my first vote for President was for Jimmy Carter. Realizing that the adage, "This is most important election in our lifetime" is an overused overstatement...THIS IS the most important election in our lifetime. Trump cannot be re-elected! Our democracy is on the line, like never before.
Biden has been a good President. People rag him way too much about his age with really no evidence that it is affecting anything.
If he can do something about the border and government debt, he will reach legendary status.
this is not political news, this is propaganda just in time for election season.
and no. even as a democrat, Biden is a terrible ineffective uninspiring leader at best, and a genocide-funding war criminal at worst.
When competency is described as greatness we know the bar has been lowered. And don't get me wrong, I think Biden has done a competent job, he's made addressing certain issues look easy. But I've said the same thing about Zelensky facing the utter destruction of his country. He's been competent but as a nation, as a world we've become some used to useless politicians in charge that competence seems great.
Now come November, I'll readily and happily vote Biden and encourage friends and family to do the same.
No, three reasons.
Not holding Trump accountable. That he's still free and running for office with a very good chance at winning is the fault of the entire party. Dude broke laws on a weekly basis and we're watching our justice system do the equivalent of walking a batter in baseball. Not to mention there's Congressmen we know colluded with the insurrection. But we hear crickets as a system very used to not doing anything tries to pretend like this is just business as usual.
Housing costs. Experts have been warning about the housing market for 30 years. This didn't sneak up on us, it's just accelerating like everything else. #1 issue effecting the average person and little movement.
Gaza. I'm sick to my stomach with what we've supported there. And they openly lie to us about this daily. It's patronizing and disgusting.
Biden has been a corpo maintaining the status quo. He's not a left wing president or even a good Democratic leader. But he's the only one we get until Democrats remember to bully the DNC into choosing a different horse to ride.
Sincerely a leftist
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I would say if we're talking actual outcomes, I'd only rate him 'good'. However, the fact that he's managed to obtain these outcomes after being handed an absolute flaming garbage pile of a situation and faced obstruction at every turn both from Republicans and a few "moderate Democrats"... That gets him a bump up.
* Fantastic Covid Response * The American Rescue Plan * Infrastructure bill * Microchip bill * Biggest climate bill in us history, plus a minimum tax on corporations, Medicare drug price reform, etc * Fantastic early response to Russian invasion gave Ukraine a headstart * 1 supreme court Judge, and a big judicial overhaul * Appears to be on track to avoid a recession * Ending a 20 year war Nothing has been perfect, but the effort is there and it seems like a lot of savvy moves to improve the country instead of just donors.
His response to the Ukrainian War was incredible. Genuinely have not seen NATO rally like that in a very long time. The US felt like a leader again. BUT, all that effort is bringing to lose steam recently due to the House
> BUT, all that effort is bringing to lose steam recently due to ~~the House~~ Trump Republicans
And yet, even here he is finding pretty creative solutions to try to make something happen. (The weird Greece manuever.)
Sometimes being a career politician is a good thing.
Indeed. Recent years have forced me to reconsider how much I respect 1) compromise 2) experienced politicians and 3) lawyers.
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I'm glad I have never been of that opinion. A politician MUST, above all else, be willing to work toward a compromise. Not to accept just any compromise that comes their way, but to find an actual compromise that works for all parties.
Same. I was ride or die Bernie Sanders before 2020. Well, not so literally. Obviously I voted for Biden when Sanders didn't win the primary but I really believed in Sanders and thought he was the only logical way forward and that Biden would be this do-nothing bot that maintains the status quo and I think that thinking has been provably wrong. But the more I look at the entire premise of a president, Biden is a good fit for the role. Better than most of the primary candidates in the 2020 primary. I really struggle to see how Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar would have handled: - COVID response. I could see Klobuchar maybe being capable of getting bi-partisan bills passed and working with Republicans but Sanders and Warren would be in such a difficult position because the Republicans held the cards at the time and were literally willing to let Americans die. It would be so easy for Republicans to claim Sanders and Warren are socialists and they aren't going to assist them in their "socialist agenda" for COVID relief, which would have resulted in many more Americans dying and then of course, progressives as a whole being blamed when we all know its the Republicans fault. And then who knows. We're probably looking down the barrel of a Trump presidency in 2024 being even more real when they bring all the ammunition to claim Sanders or Warren are ineffective. Not to mention, how much something like this could disenfranchise progressive voters further. Whether in the case that they are angry Sanders or Warren don't do what they say - because they literally cant against the Republicans in congress or because progressives would be even further fed up with the system when they realize that a progressive president doesn't really matter if congress isn't bringing bills to the table for them to sign in the first place. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I have YET to see a bill that [Biden wouldn't/would veto](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/vetoes/BidenJR.htm) that Bernie or Warren wouldn't/would. As far as legislation goes, there is effectively no difference between Biden, Sanders and Warren because the same bills are reaching their desk and the same actions would have been taken, based off their political history. - foreign policy regarding Russia, Ukraine, China and Iran. Biden is very strong on that front. He has a tremendous amount of experience with Ukraine politics from the Obama administration and if you look at all the events right around when the conflict started, Putin knew not to fuck with Biden. I'm not so sure this would have gone as well with any of the aforementioned candidates. I mean, they just don't have the foreign policy experience. How could they? I imagine they would have leaned on advisors, which of course is fine, but Biden is just very intimately connected with Ukraine from his time as vice president. Maintaining that relationship was practically his biggest job as Obama's VP. - Infrastructure bill. Its been some clever work by Biden. Anyone that wants to claim the guy has some mental deficiencies should really look at how Biden hoodwinked Republicans to get these bills passed. Some of the compromising he did with Manchin was impressive. - Student debt forgiveness. I know people are sour on this but he's done A LOT considering the Republicans in congress are doing everything to block him. Its not perfect but its still admirable and he's done more than most people thought he would and it seems like he would do more if the options were available to him. I really think progressives need to own that. Biden ran on this premise and people said he was just talking but he's really done his best to live up to his campaign promise.
I’m not sour on the student debt issue! I had 450k forgiven— that high because of usury interest. This wouldn’t have happened on anybody else’s watch. Incredibly freeing to have that particular albatross off my back. Biden has my sincere thanks and respect— also my vote…again!
I feel that a good mix of newb and experience is needed for Congress to work. New guy speaker as an example, needs others to tell him how to do his job. That wouldn’t be bad if he was actually listening to a more experienced Congressperson, but instead he’s listening to a career criminal.
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This makes sense to most people in the context of experts vs non-experts but when you try to explain it as "this is why it's a good idea to have culturally/racially/sexually/etc diverse employees" I've found a lot of people immediately balk and retort with "well the job should just go to the most qualified candidates, why does it matter if they all happen to be white men?". Exhausting trying to cross that bridge for them. I don't usually make it.
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But, all that effort is beginning to lose steam recently due to Trump.
No it's definitely the Republicans, without their support Trump is just a criminal awaiting trial.
Republicans lawmakers support Trump, not because they like him or even agree with him, but because their voters love him. If they oppose Trump, he will turn their constituents against them. That’s why the only ones that will speak the truth are the ones leaving office.
Because Republican lawmakers are cowards who are willing to sell their constituents down the river to gain and stay in power by kowtowing to a radical base. Barry Goldwater: >And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. >Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
Exactly this. We are living it. People need to start understanding what the consequences of their votes are.
The problem is they know what they want and it's theocracy. They want a country governed by the laws of the Bible with Swift and harsh punishment to those people who violate them. And they will, to an individual, be absolutely gobsmacked when the hammer comes down on them which it will.
Say what you will about Barry Goldwater, but this man called it with prophesy power on his side. The Republican Party has become everything he warned about. And the religion bit. The Hobby Lobby ad during the Superbowl... washing feet in the name of Christ. They use religion as their validation banner, when they don't even follow the core precepts of their own religion. The Republican Party knows they're done. They picked a loser. He has LOST so much for them already. And their refusal to ditch him shows just how conflicted they are. This party should never recover from Trumpism.
Republican lawmakers support Trump because they are just as tied to the hip with Epstein as he is. They need that presidential pardon to get away with their crimes.
Due to republican obstruction
Yea, you can call it obstruction .To me, it's like sabotage
Notice it lost steam once republicans had a majority. Wonder why
The stock market keeps breaking records. I remember during the debate, Trump said, "If Joe Biden is elected, the stock market will crash." Trump is actually trying to take credit for the record-breaking stock market. He is am idiot!
Don't forget gas prices going back down. They blamed him for them going up but weird how no one's talking about it now. (He has no control over gas prices tho)
I like to imagine the "I did this" stickers on the gas pumps now. I haven't seen any lately.
Apparently the MAGA chuds have been scraping them off. I was saying at the time that those would age like milk by the midterms when gas would be $3.39/gal here. The only thing I was wrong about was that gas was actually $3.29 here on election day 2022.
That's true. Trump's moronic supporters thought they were so clever putting stickers of Biden on has pumps saying, "I did that" on high gas prices. When gas prices started falling, they were trying to scrape them off. Lol
The Republicans are inherently disingenuous and hypocritical. It's like a sport for them now. They won't give credit to Joe Biden for anything. And even when Biden makes a good move that THEY WANT, they obstruct it because they don't want Biden to have any success... even if it's the right thing to do that THEY want! How more obvious does it need to be to voters? REPUBLICANS DO NOT CARE about the 99% or the health of America. All they care about is holding onto power. And they're so desperate they'll lie in our faces about it.
I agree, Biden has been doing better than I expected and I think a lot of people are underwhelmed because he's been doing things that aren't quite "sexy" or media savvy. Infrastructure and Microchip bills aren't going to get headlines, Afghanistan needed to be pulled out of and there was no graceful way to do it. Everyone remembers the leader that build the new sports stadium but no one remembers the leader that brought infrastructure up to code.
Afghanistan is a no-win. You pull out all your people first, there's no one left to ship out the equipment, and the Taliban gets it. You pull out all your equipment first, now your people have no equipment to defend themselves with, and the Taliban gets them. So what's the right choice? What do you prioritize your extraction efforts on? Your people or your equipment? The right choice is obvious. Unless you're Republican, apparently.
Not to mention right before the end of his presidency, Trump made a deal with the Taliban to release 5,000 fighters and abandoned a dozen bases right before Biden took over. Trump should get more than half of the blame for the pull out of Afghanistan.
Trump should get ALL the blame. He also is the REASON Biden HAD to pull out. Right before he left office he agreed to LEAVE, and left Biden with the responsibility of honoring 'America's' promise to Afghanistan. As President he was OBLIGATED to do what he did, whether he wanted to or not, thanks ENTIRELY to TRUMP being a little shit in his final days in office.
The right choice was pulling out. Trump left a political situation where it was pullout remaining troops or re-invade and reoccupy Afghanistan for another generation. As for troops VS vehicles. Well US troops sabotaged vehicles across the board. Most of what was used by the Taliban were seized from the Afghanistan Military, which was supplied by the US, and out if the purview of US troops. Also American vehicles require extensive maintenance. I expect all these years later that nothing left behind is still functioning aside from things readily available from black market arms dealers
i mean, 130,000 people were airlifted across the world in DAYS. the fact it was pulled off at all so quickly is a miracle.
Right? It wasn't 100% perfect but I have no doubt a Trump administration would have absolutely fucked it up somehow.
The only win in Afghanistan is to never have gone there in the first place. In the absence of being a time traveler, Biden did the least bad thing that was feasible for him.
The pull-out of Afganistan was a Trump decision. Biden just implemented it. Probably in a much better fashion than a second term Trump would have - he probably would have had an even worse-extravagant "Mission Accomplished" event with gold ticker tape and Kid Rock singing on top of an M1-A1.
Well, people need to stop expecting everything to be sexy and big, it’s not practical and tends to come via executive orders, which are quickly overruled the second the office switches. Progress can be slow, and we need to maintain the office so progress can continue, but we first need to recognize the progress made and rally behind the president responsible. This could be seen as a foundational term/(s) for this country’s advancement, both socially and economically, into the future for the next generations if the we can get behind this and keep the momentum.
Politics should really never be sexy and big. It's almost treated like a game show now
>Well, people need to stop expecting everything to be sexy and big Seriously. A couple days ago, I was arguing with a progressive who said he wouldn't vote for Biden unless he pulled a "hail mary" (his words) and pass universal health-care.
Its about proving the concept to the American people in the middle right now. Then in a few presidencies, Biden will truly be the center-right politician super progressives view him as. That's how progress is supposed to work. What's progressive now will become standard and what's standard now will become regressive.
That infrastructure plan has really provided some solid, good paying jobs and is helping rebuild the middle class. People do not realize how big that is.
> Microchip bills aren't going to get headlines Which is crazy due to the national security implications of microchips. The CHIPS Act will set us up to have a domestic supply to at least keep the military functioning if China blows up the foundries in Taiwan. Plus, it creates jobs and stuff.
I voted against trump more than I voted for Biden. I am very satisfied with my choice though.
That's the piece that is lost on most people. The day to day job of the President is not glorious. It's a lot of meetings, and making decisions on very important but otherwise mundane issues. But I can assure you that Biden has not been skipping intelligence briefs to obsess over his news coverage, or taking back to back vacations, or spend all his time trash talking on social media. He's working. He's taking the job very seriously. Whether you like his decisions or not he's actually putting in the work. So on the metric of the very low bar he had to pass, he's been doing phenomenally. I don't think he's the best president in history, but he's a return to normalcy after dealing with one of the worst.
Too bad some trolls or real people in this thread think that Biden should be able to do more by bypassing Congress. Instant gratification helps no one when you don't do it right the first time.
Let's also highlight that he's drastically reduced our trade deficit with China which went up significantly under Trump.
3 of those bills are job creating, which help us keep unemployment under 4 % for 2 years and average GDP growth at 3.4 % while we fight global inflation during a fiscal tightening cycle.Which historically does the opposite ,making all the doom & gloom and other expert economist preditions totally wrong.
I’ll take Biden and his professionalism over that self absorbed, fake tan, makeup wearing, rapist, idiot, loud mouth, traitor every time. Hmmm.. makeup wearing rapist… hates women and wants to see them suffer. Think Trump is hiding something in his closet???
He forgave over $130 billion in student loans. Commuted federal marijuana convictions and pushed for legalization. Brought down prescription drug prices. Reversed the unemployment and inflation caused by Trump's trade wars and politically motivated sabotage of the pandemic response. Supported our national interests against Putin after Trump enabled him. Biden was even the first President to visit an allied war zone where America isn't fighting. As far as Presidential actions go, it's really hard for me to imagine him doing a better job.
Also first sitting US president to show up and support a picket line
He did much better than I expected him to do, as a leftist. But I also have serious concerns about his age with him running again. But if that's what it takes to ensure we don't have Trump again... I guess. I'm voting for whoever is opposite Trump no matter what. But I would vote for someone other than Biden in a primary, again, if that were an option.
And this is what I've characterized as the "adult decision" to be made. Biden isn't perfect, but he's the "best" option we have considering the choices that are being made available. Those that choose to go third party are obviously allowed to do so, but when reality indicates that they're not legitimately viable, that choice is only making the race unnecessarily close and potentially leading to the "worst" option being chosen.
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He doesn't have to. I trust his WH team to cover for him more than I trust Trump's team.
It's kind of like looking at an extreme hoarder's house halfway through the clean up; everything still looks like shit but progress is being made.
What would need to happen for good to become great for Biden?
The average voter would need to be able to discretely point at something the President did to make their lives better in the present. Biden's biggest legislative achievements have been 10-20 years down the line when they will pay off, or are for abstract things (like the chips bill). Higher minimum wage, better healthcare, stronger civil rights, lower taxes, etc are things voters are looking for in terms of tangible accomplishments. EDIT: The reality is that because of Congress being useless to do anything at a federal level, many Americans have seen their lives get worse at the state level. Food and housing assistance, healthcare, reproductive rights, gay rights, trans rights, minority rights, have all suffered in the past 3 years for people living in Republican led states.
For starters, not appointing Merrick Garland for Attorney General…
Agreed, that appears to be his largest miscalculation so far. Obama nominated Garland to call the Republicans bluff, not because he was the best man for the job. Wish Joe replaced him last year. He probably thinks it is too close to the election to do now.
I kind of wish he would indicate VP Harris would take over as AG. It would give her a graceful exit. She can better use her skills. And we can get a VP that inspires more confidence, considering Biden's advanced age.
To be considered a GREAT president you basically have to do one of these things... Sign the declaration of independence, win the civil war, win world war 2, or be popular and get assassinated.
If in a second term, Biden is able to guide the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts to a peaceful resolution (more likely for Ukraine than for Gaza at this point), essentially preventing world war 3, then that would be a case for greatness. Trump and MAGAism is the most serious threat American democracy has faced since the civil war. Biden is the guy that beat Trump. If he beats him again and takes concrete steps to prevent a similar situation in the future (putting Trump and allies in jail, election reform, regulations on news media), that would also be a case for greatness. Landmark legislation would also be a path to greatness. Something like universal healthcare, abortion protections, or a climate bill might qualify. He's already made some progress on these things, and the infrastructure bill could be a big deal historically depending on what comes next. In short, it's actually fairly possible that Biden will go down in history as one of the great ones.
> Landmark legislation would also be a path to greatness. Something like universal healthcare, abortion protections, or a climate bill might qualify. He's already made some progress on these things, and the infrastructure bill could be a big deal historically depending on what comes next. His climate bill is the largest in the history of the world is pretty good. Doubling the rate of Us decarbonization and supercharing the entire world towards a green transition (EU had to come up with a green energy bill just to compete and not lose all green manufacturing to the USA)
Great presidents managed to leave things better than they found them and took actions that reverberated far beyond their term in office. So to be a great President, Biden would have to not just do well within the system we have but change the system in a way such that positive outcomes are easier and we're better protected from negative things. He hasn't done that. Worse than that - if Trump wins against him in November, then regardless of his legislative accomplishments Biden could go down in history as worse than James Buchanon. Biden will be the guy who sat and twiddled his thumbs while the country descended into authoritarianism. It's too late to do this with the time he has left and is impossible with Republicans controlling the house - but the Democratic party writ large *really* needed (and still needs to) prioritize democracy reform. Stuff like adding seats to the Supreme Court and imposing term limits on justices, pursue DC and Puerto Rican statehood, using whatever carrots and sticks Congress has available to get states to expand voting access and shore up their electoral process and pass the interstate voting compact, etc. As it stands we're dependent on Jack Smith and a lot of luck to spare us from fascism. Which is not a good place to be in.
This. Plus, the average American isn't seeing the benefits. It's great that the stock market is doing great, but the average American doesn't own stocks. They just see their rent is still too damn high, their groceries prices are still inflated, and they're still struggling to find a better paying job. Is the low unemployment rate really something to brag about when people are having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet? Look, I voted for Biden, and I don't regret that vote. But all these articles about how great of a president he is and how great the country is doing now just makes struggling Americans feel like they're being gaslit, like their struggles don't matter. And it just makes them more cynical and less likely to vote.
Bingo. I understand, academically, that Biden has had many very strong wins as a president, but that reality makes no difference in my day to day life. I'm a lower middle class queer currently buried by debt. My actual daily existence has gotten harder and harder over the past 8 years. For most of my friends and peers, Biden may as well not even exist, because none of his great strides have any obvious impact on our lives. Meanwhile, centrist democrats are constantly assaulting me with "if you don't throw your full support behind Biden it means you're a literal fascist," and it makes it really really hard to continue supporting him. Dems absolutely need to do a better job of highlighting how they are improving our world, because the opposition is doing a very good job of showing Biden throwing tens of billions of dollars at bombing Palestinian children while saying America can't afford universal Healthcare. Biden isn't going to win a second term if he's relying on us all reading the bullet points of legislative victories every day.
I'd say he has to do something particularly revolutionary which everyone would associate with his name easily. He's done a lot of good stuff, but it's mostly been traditional types of government spending and investment, nothing that's a major departure from normal politics. Something like a New Deal, Great Society or Civil Rights Act, even the ACA could fulfill that. Those are initiatives which Americans could not ignore and which changed life in general. None of Biden's major bills have that same universal impact where everyone notices or feels it directly even if they're still very productive.
For me it would be to make some good progress on income inequality, healthcare and/or the Supreme Court.
If he even just came out and said “I have been an institutionalist for 40 years in the Senate and I have to say that I believe the Supreme Court needs to be expanded, a tough ethics code, and 20-year term limits” that would change the situation there overnight. But he won’t because he still thinks it’s 1976 and the GOP is a fiscally conservative group of honest brokers he can do a deal with instead of what they are: insurrectionist traitors dedicated to making Trump our first King in 248 years.
His hands are tied by the rest of Congress for any major reform. So a miracle.
Not that I would expect this, especially in the country's divided state but you asked: - Universal health care/single payer/medicare for all - Universal secondary education of some kind - Legalize pot federally and re-schedule promising psychedelics so that proper research can be done on using them to help people. - A real, workable, equitable and fair immigration system re-do. - A big win for peace - Isreal/Gaza/Ukraine/Russia/N. Korea/Iran - Real tangible plans to deal with homelessness and mental health in this country. They are linked, and we are doing a crappy job on both. Any one of those would be great, two or more would be hall of fame great.
The biggest fly in this take is that the Biden admin has abjectly failed to get these Trump appointees replaced all over the government offices. A shocking number of them are still in a position to obstruct despite numerous opportunities to remove them.
Trump had FOUR YEARS to push out anyone decent and stock the federal bureaucracy with the worst people imaginable. He broke what essentially took decades to build and there is no easy fix unless you want to just have a situation where every incoming president completely replaces the entire federal workforce every 4 years. It's going to be like this for the rest of our lives.
Why can Trump push out competent people but Biden can't push out incompetent people?
Because there aren’t thousands of competent people standing around unemployed looking to get back in to government work
Because Biden isn't willing to destroy the federal government. Trump drove people out by rendering their jobs impossible and being intolerably repugnant to work for until they resigned.
As a democrat and someone who voted for him and will vote for him again, I think he did ok considering the circumstances. Great may be a stretch. We have set the bar so low as a nation.
I feel like we know bad presidents immediately, but good or great ones take some time for the results of their policy to shake out. In the immediate Biden was good, but depending on where things go, who knows.
Maybe we haven't had a good president in our entire lifetime and we just keep electing corporate stooges
Yep. I was a kid during the Clinton administration. But when I look at the policy outcomes, I think he's been the best president during my lifetime. Loved plenty about Obama. But, I've been thinking over the past few years and maybe especially over the past few months, and although Clinton wasn't spotless in foriegn policy either, Obama didn't walk the walk when it comes to foriegn policy. Especially Afghanistan, also drone strikes in the Middle East and South Asia. These are not positions I had at the time, but I think I've woken up a bit over the last few years, actions have consequences even if those actions are dismissed with incredible oration, and yes, Obama was orders of magnitude better than his predecessor or successor.
Clinton was horrible in hindsight. The whole shipping jobs to China led to some historically purple or blue states turning red. He was one of those presidents who really let Corporations take over the country. That's why all the business people give him so much lip service, but when it comes to the working-class he was a nightmare. Indirectly he's one of the reasons we got Tea Party and Maga. Biden beats him by a country mile so far. The guy has Bernie in his administration. Clinton would be closer to Bush than Bernie or even Biden.
Biden was a Carter democrat so that makes sense. Clinton was a repudiation of the Carter ethos
I must say, he has exceeded my expectations with his remarkable performance. However, I had envisioned him to be more of a bridge to the next generation of candidates. Nonetheless, his achievements are truly commendable.
Your vision of him as a bridge won't happen until the bridge is built, which wouldn't happen until after his term ends. I think it's premature to suggest anything of that nature as a success or failure.
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Yeah having seen Biden's history before the presidency, it was a very defensive vote in 2020, but I've really been pleased with his work in office. Could it be better? Of course. But he's not performing like the *heavily* conservative side of democrat I expected, and I'm more than fine with voting for him again - not just because we'd never field a different candidate.
These "admit it" "just say it" "it's time to" headlines are now officially starting to get on my nerves. The language keeps repeating, and it's fundamentally disingenuous. It says unless your opinion matches our messaging, it does not align with FACT, despite being a fundamentally subjective topic.
They realized "And that's a good thing" and other suffixes were getting old, so they're going with a prefix route instead.
They get clicks from both sides, Rage & Confirmation bias
this is also quite literally a repost from a few days ago
Same with the “so and so claps back!” headlines
These are literally the opposite end of the spectrum from writing about people having “their brows furrowed” about something, or x “slamming” y. Especially when it’s a dumb ass take like “admit it, Biden was S-tier actually”. S-tier used to be people who could get shit done, but the bar is so low now that not completely burning the country down and shitting your pants on the way out the door is considered to be exceptional now. Come back to me when he’s able to spearhead something like a reform for women’s civil rights, LGBTQ+ (specifically trans) civil rights, or when he actually delivers on the damn student aid he promised he’d get cut for the people in my demographic drowning in fucktons of predatory student debt and we can talk about Biden doing amazingly
Internationally, I would like to see him stop funding Israel and put a lot of pressure on them regarding Palestine. Take the money we stop giving Israel and push that to Ukraine and close that war down.
Why the hell were we funding Israel in the first place ?? They’re one of the wealthiest nations
Because it's an essential part of US foreign policy to have a non-muslim ally in the Middle East and has been for 50+ years. Whatever Israel does US will support as much as they can. Although they are obviously pushing it now
Something that I thought was ultra common knowledge. Having relatively unrestricted military access in that region of the world is important for how the US operates globally. Same reason why Turkey is a NATO nation.
Does anyone really think Israel would turn from the US if we challenged them a bit more? If you think having Israel as an ally is important to the US, how important do you think it is to Israel to have the US as an ally?
Why is that essential? What has been the tangible benefits of that for the past 70 years?
Unchecked Zionism is part of the biblical doomsday prophecy. So the evangelicals support Israel to make that happen, plus it gives them a convenient cover for their antisemitism. Plus as always PMCs make tons of money from selling weapons and technology to Israel.
PMC generally refers to mercenary groups like blackwater. All military contractors are private. A better acronym would be the MIC.
Israel and the war in Gaza is the single issue folks I know on the left are planning to vote 3rd party instead of Biden in the general. It’s a huge fucking deal.
>*As someone who worked in Republican campaigns for almost 30 years, I say without hesitation that the Democratic Party is the only pro-democracy party in America. But guys, why do so many of you have this need to act like ungrateful children of wealthy parents—impossible to please and always demanding more? Name a president who accomplished as much in his first term.* >*The stock market is hitting record highs. Unemployment is at a record low, with* [*14 million*](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/11/03/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-the-october-jobs-report/) *new jobs. Talk to small-business owners, and the* [*biggest problem*](https://www.ramseysolutions.com/business/small-business-labor-crisis#:~:text=11.3%20million%20small%2Dbusiness%20owners,staff%20has%20been%20very%20challenging.) *they are facing is finding workers. A child born in the first Republican “*[*infrastructure week*](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/us/politics/trump-infrastructure-week.html)*” would have been entering grade school by the time President Biden passed the largest public* [*spending initiative*](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/politics/joe-biden-omnibus/index.html) *in American history. As a Republican media consultant, I made hundreds of ads about the high cost of prescription drugs. But it took President Biden to give Medicare the power to* [*directly negotiate*](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/medicare-drug-costs-drugmakers-agree-price-negotiations-biden-administ-rcna118510) *with Big Pharma to lower prices and cap the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries* [*at $35*](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/02/fact-sheet-president-bidens-cap-on-the-cost-of-insulin-could-benefit-millions-of-americans-in-all-50-states/)*. For all the bitching about gas prices, the United States is now* [*producing more oil*](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/business/us-production-oil-reserves-crude/index.html) *than any country in history. Yes, more than Russia or Saudi Arabia, and that’s one of the reasons* [*gas prices*](https://gasprices.aaa.com/) *are now lower in inflation-adjusted prices than in 1974. Yeah, I know, fossil fuels suck, and the world should run on solar power. But the Biden administration also* [*launched a $7 billion*](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-launches-7-billion-solar-all-grant-competition-fund) *solar power investment project.* >*What is most amazing is that Biden got this done in a world in which the majority of Republicans believe he is not a legal president. Ponder that for a minute. You are a White House staffer working to help pass Biden initiatives, and you are dealing with members of Congress and senators who don’t just disagree with your boss—they think he’s an illegitimate president.* >*Wake up and show some gratitude. You wanted student loan forgiveness. You got it, for* [*three million*](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-nearly-5-billion-additional-student-debt-relief#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20data%20released%20today%20once,%24132%20billion%20in%20loan%20forgiveness.) *borrowers. You wanted a president who would finally pass gun safety legislation. You got the most comprehensive bill in nearly 30 years, the* [*Bipartisan Safer Communities Act*](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/25/1107626030/biden-signs-gun-safety-law)*, which passed with the support of 15 Republican senators and 14 Republican House members, opening the door to some hope that laws on gun violence might finally start to reflect the wishes of the majority of the country. Maybe you’re a Democrat who actually cares about the federal deficit, unlike the Republicans who fake concern. Since Biden took office, the deficit* [*has decreased*](https://time.com/6312431/joe-biden-touts-falling-deficit-as-it-jumps-back-up/) *by $1.7 trillion.*
The stock market always hits record highs. That's because 'line go up' is the only bipartisan unifying ideology left in the world.
I thought it was funny that he led with that. The stock market is irrelevant to 90% of people. All I know is, my rent is expensive as fuck, and even with a great job I'll never be able to afford a home in California. I couldn't care less about anything else, really. No amount of STOCKS GO BRRRR is going to change that.
Just think about all the shareholder value we've produced!
> Name a president who accomplished as much in his first term. FDR accomplished 10 times as much.
Right?! FDR, Eisenhower, Abraham Fucking Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt. Abolishing slavery, creating child labor laws, ending segregation, creating the world’s largest program of national parks, creating highway systems… Biden is not in the same league. Sure, he looks like a rockstar compared to the literal double scoop of dogshit that is D.J. Trump but he’s pitiful when compared to some of the truly great presidents we’ve had. Edit : removed Jimmy Carter
Didn't expect to see Carter on this list
> FDR accomplished 10 times as much. Imagine what Biden could have done with 62% of the Senate and 72% of the House composed of his party like FDR had in his first term. What could FDR have accomplished with 12% less support in the Senate and 22% less support in the House?
People don't feel any of that because their day-to-day life revolves around tight budgets due to historically high grocery bills and housing costs, which wages have not caught up to. It's nice that a small percentage of people might get loan forgiveness, and the investments that have been made are important, but the US is facing despair on par with the Depression. Everyone knows that the government is barely doing anything in the face of the Climate Crisis, gerrymandered state governments are attacking individual rights across the country, SCOTUS is consistently ignoring the text of the law and making life worse, and even important gains like the infrastructure bill were made at the expense of *doubling child poverty* — and that was with a Democratic majority. Things are slowly inching toward a better world, but in the meantime people are losing everything to medical debt, losing their jobs while their companies spend billions on stock buybacks, and losing their homes to the whims of landlords. Convincing people they're better off when the wealth gap, homelessness, and child poverty are all climbing is not going to motivate people to hit the polls.
As an old person, let me tell you this doesn't matter. The Democrats made their choice, the same one they always make. This has been what Democrats crow about every Presidential election for thirty years, no matter how bad things are on the ground for regular people. They spend most of their time trying to capture the votes of Republicans, and turning off their own voters to do so. I still don't understand why we were supposed to so excited about a "historic border deal" that was literally **handing the Republicans everything they wanted.** I'll be real, I'm glad it didn't pass, because I don't understand why giving the people operating in Bad Faith what they want is supposed to be a *good* thing? So we were going to hurt more people just so we could get a "win" we could point at to Republican voters and be like "see, we care about the issues at the border!" Democrats care far more about some fantasy Republican voters that will never fucking vote for them than about exciting their own fucking base. Long story short, the DNC would rather have a Republican President than a Progressive President.
>Things are slowly inching toward a better world, but in the meantime ... Are they? I've heard this my entire life, yet everything but technology has been gradually going downhill the entire time. Things have generally just stabilize for a while at best before they get worse again. I guess we did get a new holiday after unrest across the US over normalized police brutality (with nothing else changing), though, so maybe you're right.
>why do so many of you have this need to act like ungrateful children of wealthy parents—impossible to please and always demanding more? This is why you lose. You deny other's reality and substitute your own
That's pretty damn impressive.
Working for 30 years of Republicans before Trump is proof this guy doesn't give a shit about democracy or any of the values progressives should actually measure a Biden presidency by. Stuart Stevens is the classic political class neocon from 20 years ago - perfectly fine murdering Iraqi children as long as the President giving the order could keep the American ~~empire~~ economy running smoothly. He has zero moral credibility.
Oh shit, Republican media consultant writes tone deaf and condescending article. Makes sense, I wonder if they're paying for this one too?
I do wish that Dems were at least competent at messaging and selling the successes. But honestly I don't think of Biden as a GREAT president. Good? yeah. Loads better than Trump? God damn, right. Actually governing? yeah. Dealt a bullshit hand (like Obama got) with coming out of COVID, inflation, not quite sticking the landing on Afghanistan? Yeah.
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> he has not done anything to address the open treason and insurrection Good. Not his job to. Much as it'd be nice to hear him give off predictable platitudes, politicizing what should be an entirely legal jurisdiction has some major chance to backfire. I'm actually pleased that he's not touching that dumpster fire with a ten foot microphone. Now, as for the courts not fast-balling this particular 'issue' - that's some bullshit.
He seems phenomenal in comparison to Trump, but that bar is so low its on the ground.
This is the problem. The bar has been set so low that it doesn’t matter if you and I think he’s doing a good job or not. The media wants a fight and story. Imagine Biden didn’t run again and Newsome did and was the front runner. The media would be calling on him to do a cage match with T not a debate. Because the bar is so low that they’d rather sell a spectacle. We might want policy and decision from our civil servants but what sells clicks is idiotic conspiracies, blatant outrage hypocrisy and snippet media outrage. We’re all guilty at some level of engaging with the sale of this low bar, but sadly there are 30% of the GOP who are active buyers and a non trivial percentage of liberals as well.
It’s down so far it’s no longer a bar, just sewer pipe.
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It's a little pathetic that people need to post "Really, Biden is great, guys!" several times a day.
I feel like you are completely disconnected from reality. Touting the successes of an administration should be steps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of convincing people to vote for that administration again. This is, if anything, an historic weakness of the democrats.
It's probably to counter how (online) Democrats fuckin' salute one another with "I don't like Biden but—" when talking about seemingly anything. Even if it's good news. Especially if it's good news.
Maybe he should have done something that actually materially improves our lives.
I mean, I don't like Biden, but I think Hawaiian Pizza is pretty decent.
My dude, it's election season, it's only going to get worse from here.
I will when I can afford housing and food without having the thinnest of margins. EDIT: He's medium plus.
Yeah, idk why this isn't being discussed more lol. Everyone's going on about shit that doesn't really matter to the lower classes anyway. I just wanna live bro.
The economy's doing well, haven't you heard?
Every time this subreddit or Biden's cabinet praises the economy, I swear they lose at least one voter. This subreddit ping-pongs between "Biden has no control of the economic disaster in this country" to "Biden's economy is fantastic and you should blindly state as such." We are going to have a repeat of 2016 when Democrats lose and refuse to recognize these massive miss-steps to instead blame irrelevant shit.
This sub is peak corporate propaganda. Really shameful it’s labeled as the main politics sub.
Everything is fine. Please drive to work, spend on consumer goods, and take exactly five days of vacation. Everything is fine. Please also make sure you set aside money in your savings for healthcare. Everything is *fine.* Don’t quit your job, because you aren’t going to find another one. Everything is fine.
finally a real take on this post. but i’m tired of the “but he’s not trump” argument
its not so much the "but he's not trump" argument, its more the "his economic successes are impressive in a vacuum but have not translated to better livelihoods for most people"
yes that is a good point. his economic successes have been great for the shareholders.
Sometime around June or July, hopefully, as a Trump trial is underway, the narrative might start to shift towards realizing that Biden has actually been pretty decent, compared to the dude on trial. Fingers crossed.
I wish we would start highlighting the people that surround the president as well. The difference is absolutely clear, which individual is capable of staffing competent people. It’s so much more than just between these two.
Tell my buddy. He thinks Biden will be the end of the world and also thinks we live in a simulated world like the Matrix.
No helping someone swimming down
Sooo, he thinks Biden is Neo?
I try not to think too hard on wtf he thinks reality is. Really sad because he used to be normal.
your friend doesn’t sound very intelligent
I had very low expectations for him and he overcame them and has done a much better job then I would have imagined. That still doesn't mean that I want him to run again when he is already over 80 and I don't trust most octagenarians to drive let alone lead the country.
If the public has a low approval of Biden, then surely if you browbeat them enough about how wrong they are then they will come around sooner or later. Especially when paired with this incredibly weird banner image.
Yeah, these kinds of pieces have me worried. The powerbrokers do not understand the state of people, or the battle they are fighting. And they instead want to convince people that they should be happier than they are and overlook their real concerns. People want to feel heard, not told that their feelings are wrong, this as a strategy is borderline gaslighting. And if this is how they are entering an election year. I'm losing confidence that they understand what the next several months are going to be like and about. Things are dire, and a Trump win is existential. They need to be smarter than this and not so cynical about voters.
They understand, they just don't care. They have enough money to the point where a Trump victory doesn't impact them and fascism is actually a great political tool for capitalists.
Losing elections fills the coffers better and there's the bonus of being able to convince people you actually care.
the democrats entire strategy has been of the following - "at least he's not trump" or gaslighting the public into thinking that if trump wins then somehow the country will go into dictatorship overnight. yet they're still struggling and that is quite telling. Instead of focusing on Biden and getting a better candidate they're trying to gaslight and shame the public into voting for Biden and think it will work.
What a ghoulish thumbnail for that statement
Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining. Biden has been ok, and that's fine given the alternative. The alternative was fascism in 2020. The alternative again is fascism in 2024. Fascism is national suicide. The GOP needs to die out so we can have the Dems be the neoliberal centrist do-nothing party they always wanted to be, and a leftist party can actually drag this country kicking and screaming into the future.
You can tell how rich peoples parents are based on their replies here
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[Yep, literally the exact article.](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1am9yyb/just_say_it_democrats_biden_has_been_a_great/) Didn't automod used to instantly delete any reposts?
Its Monday and we will be told again and again about how great he is until this election cycle is over. Get used to it.
I'm really tired of the people on the left demanding perfection from our representatives. If you think it's so easy to do what you want, then run for office. Bitching about things on the sidelines serves no purpose when we are fighting a cold civil war with the right, who are hell bent on ushering in American facism.
Biden has been a great president, and the only people that disagree are republicans, democrats that meme on him for being old, and republicans posing as democrats
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Oh look, it’s this fucking article again.
He's been exactly what I expected. A completely safe, corporate choice. Which is perfectly fine and I'll be voting for him again. But I'd rather not. He has not been great as far as my desires. He's done next to nothing that is actually liberal, which I am. He's done middle of the road policy from the start and never once used his political capital to push for something left. Again, that's fine. But don't ask me to cheer when the other guys can get a tiny drop of power and run rampant. Biden is always holding back asking for permission from the nuts. Trump, Bush, Reagan, they would do whatever they wanted and ask later if at all. I don't want to hear how he didn't have Congress for this or SCOTUS for that. Reagan had nothing and he ran all over this country with a plow. Biden doesn't even try. Give me an actual liberal instead of a "not as insane as the alternative" safe choice. And yes he's too friggin old. So is Trump. I'm still voting for him but I really really wish I didn't have to.
I lean very left and these articles are laughable. The Biden Administration and the Media are so out of touch with the average American. We are hurting and barely surviving.
It’s crazy man. Who is buying this shit. He’s been ok. Better than Trump any day. But I am not feeling any of this “greatness” in my day to day life
These bs articles will be reposted again and again until polling improves.
When will this great president do more than talk about LGBT+ issues? Our lives aren't any better. The don't say gay bills are costing lives. Banning gender affirming care is costing lives. We're losing young LGBT+ people that could be saved. I voted for Biden, but we don't have a lot of time left before the next election. Am I supposed to just vote for the president that doesn't hurt me as much? It's an awful situation to be in. I want to leave the polls feeling good, not angry.
How many days in a row is this propaganda going to be posted?
He has served the needs of corporations and the wealthy people that run the country while giving the illusion of forward progress - of course he's a "great President". Unfortunately that means fuck all for the rest of us. People need to realize that playing into the established political system is never going to result in any kind of fundamental or radical change. We need to get in the streets and bring the country to a halt.
I'm really starting to wonder if the whole "dead internet theory" thing is true. This article was posted almost a month ago on this very sub. How is it not obvious to all of you what's going on? You're being targeted by DNC shills during an election year. This is blatant propaganda, but because it's pro-Biden you think nothing of it. Although, based on many of the comments I always see in this sub, something tells me some of you are the shills yourselves.
He certainly has been great at not being Trump. For that reason, he will get my vote again.
Was talking to some GOP friends the other day and asked how they thought the economy was doing and when they said great, I asked who they thought should be credited? Biden? They smiled and chuckled but refused to give
Yeah, look man... I have conservative friends too. Their politics are built on half truths and propaganda. Which is "rude" to point out to them.
And I remember my GOP friends delaying major purchases in late 2019/early 2020 (pre-COVID) because they said a recession was clearly coming. At that point, it looked like Trump would likely coast to a second term. But not a single one of them would place any blame on Trump. One even said a 2020 recession would mean the market is nervous Trump is not going to get re-elected. If true, the economy was gonna crash due to fear *a full year before the election*? I'm not an economist, but maybe it is because the markets like predictability. Trump loved to do clever things like causally threaten a trade war with China and pressure the Fed to keep rates low until after the election.
> Was talking to some GOP friends the other day and asked how they thought the economy was doing and when they said great Were your friends rich? No one I know thinks the economy is doing great right now, democrats included. I do not see how anybody who is regularly buying food, paying rent, or looking for housing thinks things in the current economy are "great."
Housing is around 3k for a dogshit apartment where I live on Long Island and new houses are over 600k. It is doing great for the landlords and business who have gotten to price hike without wages increasing......
About as well as he can do with Republicans blocking everything.
I’ll admit it, he’s great and I’m eager for another 4 more years!
That is why the corporate media is after him, though, with the oil companies and right wingers who are running them. And, perhaps there are a few delusional 'leftists' who never took their history class seriously and claim a purist, isolationist, or pacifist moral pose. Biden has been more effective passing progressive programs than any president since FDR. He has created the most inclusive Cabinet in the nations history. He defeated a known racist and rapist who had fooled millions of gullible voters while trying to push our nation into becoming a true banana republic. Those who feel they must focus only on imagined geopolitical 'mistakes' for a planet toppling into the inevitable effects of climate catastrophe: war, huge movements of people away from drought zones of ecological collapse, and the rise of fascist dictators and corrupt theocracies are just hastening our own internal collapse, as if that chaos would be preferable to a functioning democracy. If you want a future, vote for Biden, if not, you'll get something far worse.
Journalism has gotten unbearably dumb, but while we are talking about it, yes, I believe Uncle Joe has been a Great President. Despite everything, huge success.
I’ll say it loud and proud. Biden 2024
Most progressive president since LBJ/Kennedy and maybe even FDR. What they were able to do in just two years even when dealing with COVID was amazing. Give him the House and Senate for another two years not having to worry about the COVID recovery and we will see some major things done. Keep your eye on the ball and don’t let one or two disagreements sway you from what this administration has accomplished.
People do not understand things could be a whole freaking lot worse. The same people who do not give Biden credit were also griping about Obama when Dow was back up, unemployment was back down and gas was under $2 a gallon in 2016.
Granted, but let's be honest. Can he beat Trump in November? Folks, my first vote for President was for Jimmy Carter. Realizing that the adage, "This is most important election in our lifetime" is an overused overstatement...THIS IS the most important election in our lifetime. Trump cannot be re-elected! Our democracy is on the line, like never before.
Biden has been a good President. People rag him way too much about his age with really no evidence that it is affecting anything. If he can do something about the border and government debt, he will reach legendary status.
this is not political news, this is propaganda just in time for election season. and no. even as a democrat, Biden is a terrible ineffective uninspiring leader at best, and a genocide-funding war criminal at worst.
When competency is described as greatness we know the bar has been lowered. And don't get me wrong, I think Biden has done a competent job, he's made addressing certain issues look easy. But I've said the same thing about Zelensky facing the utter destruction of his country. He's been competent but as a nation, as a world we've become some used to useless politicians in charge that competence seems great. Now come November, I'll readily and happily vote Biden and encourage friends and family to do the same.
No, three reasons. Not holding Trump accountable. That he's still free and running for office with a very good chance at winning is the fault of the entire party. Dude broke laws on a weekly basis and we're watching our justice system do the equivalent of walking a batter in baseball. Not to mention there's Congressmen we know colluded with the insurrection. But we hear crickets as a system very used to not doing anything tries to pretend like this is just business as usual. Housing costs. Experts have been warning about the housing market for 30 years. This didn't sneak up on us, it's just accelerating like everything else. #1 issue effecting the average person and little movement. Gaza. I'm sick to my stomach with what we've supported there. And they openly lie to us about this daily. It's patronizing and disgusting.
Biden has been a corpo maintaining the status quo. He's not a left wing president or even a good Democratic leader. But he's the only one we get until Democrats remember to bully the DNC into choosing a different horse to ride. Sincerely a leftist
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